But on a federal level Homebrewing is legal. Distilling of spirits isn't...it's pretty cut and dried. I'm not arguing state's rights here, but on a Federal Level Homebrewing is legal. The other isn't.
Distilling spirits for personal use IS legal under federal law. The difference is you have to apply/receive a permit and pay taxes for any amount, where w/ wine & beer you're allowed to produce a certain amount tax/license free. Admittedly not the same level of freedom - but legal none-the-less.
We still are looked down on despite the laws. Hence the double standard between wine and beer and homewinemaking and homebrewing. Home winemaking was either never made illegal during prohibition or it was instantly legalized with the repeal. Homebrewing wasn't.
Incorrect. Prohibition didn't exempt wine. The Volstead act allowed winemaking & consumption for the purposes of religious ceremony only. Granted, this provided a loophole which was abused to some extent - but when abused - it was outside the boundaries of the law and therefore just as illegal as the use/manufacture of any other form of booze.
Wineries CAN ship wine directly to the consumer, but breweries can't. Even high end ones like Stone or Rogue. Hell you can get a 100 dollar bottle of wine shipped to you from a winery but you can't get a bottle of Utopia sent to you from Sam Adams.
There is no federal law or mandate which differentiates between wine & beer in regards to intrastate (or interstate) distribution. It's a states issue, and every state has different laws in this regard. Where there are prohibitions, in most cases they apply equally to beer & wine (though I will admit there are exceptions.. usually driven by the wine lobby, which as I'm about to point out, has an interest in doing so where breweries do not).
The difference you're concerned with has more to do with economics and logistics than anything else. It may make sense - from both a seller & consumer's point of view - to pay $8.00 in shipping for a $50.00 (min) bottle wine. But it hardly makes sense to pay twice that shipping a 12-pack that retails for $15.00 at the corner store you can walk to. And then there's the shipping companies themselves, that for their own legal reasons, choose not to deal with beer. Simply put - shipping beer direct to customers just doesn't make a whole lot of sense... especially when you add in the legal complications of age verification.
The reason you can't find breweries shipping direct to consumers isn't because of some grand conspiracy. It's because they wouldn't benefit from it.